Will Mackenzie is a television director we value for his attention to actors, timing and ensemble comedy. The steady work matters as much as the departures into Shakespeare and musical comedy, though Moonlighting sometimes enjoys its own cleverness too much.
Fi1m perspective
The quarrels in Moonlighting (1985) are worth staying for: Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis make the detective comedy funny and flirtatious. We enjoyed their sparring enough to forgive the programme’s occasional self-congratulation. Mackenzie was one of its directors, and its appeal cannot simply be put down to him. But it offers a useful way into his work: comedy that needs actors to respond to one another, with the director attending to timing and where everyone stands. We value that care, even when the programme around it gets carried away.
His move from stage acting to television direction began with The Bob Newhart Show in the 1970s. Taxi (1978) and Family Ties (1982) belong to the long stretch of ensemble comedy that became his main work. The theatre background helps explain the attention to blocking, though his career has accommodated both multi-camera and single-camera programmes. Worth Winning (1989), his one feature, did not signal a lasting move away from television. It makes more sense to follow the programmes he helped sustain than to treat that film as the destination.
That steady employment left room for unusual assignments. In Moonlighting, he directed 'Atomic Shakespeare' (1986), a Shakespearean episode that required more than keeping the detective comedy ticking over. Later came 'My Musical', an episode of Scrubs (2001), with the added demands of musical comedy. He was plainly willing to do more than repeat a familiar format.
The longer partnerships matter at least as much: 32 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond (1996), working with Ray Romano and creator Phil Rosenthal, and 63 of Reba (2001), with Reba McEntire. On Everybody Loves Raymond, he helped establish the programme’s tone in the early seasons. That work deserves attention alongside the special episodes, rather than being dismissed as routine. Our reservation about Moonlighting is that the programme sometimes admires its own cleverness at the expense of getting on with a scene. Start there, provided a detective comedy making time for Shakespeare sounds like a reasonable use of an evening.
Biography
Will Mackenzie is an American television director and former actor. Born on 24 July 1938 in Providence, Rhode Island, he began his career on stage, making his Broadway debut in the 1965 musical Half a Sixpence. He appeared as an actor in several television series before transitioning to directing.
Mackenzie made his directorial debut on The Bob Newhart Show and went on to direct episodes of numerous series, including Taxi (1978), Moonlighting (1985), Family Ties, Everybody Loves Raymond, Dharma & Greg, Scrubs and Reba. He received multiple Emmy Award nominations for outstanding directing and won three Directors Guild of America Awards, two for episodes of Moonlighting and one for Family Ties.
